Denison

In 558 BC, with the Persians restless under Median rule, a Median peace-keeping force captures Specialist Keith Denison of the Time Patrol and finds his timecycle hidden in a cave although Keith, when asked to demonstrate this "'...brazen horse...'" (Time Patrol, p. 83), sends it on an endless pastward journey. General Harpagus, left with the captured magician though without his mysterious gadget, strengthens Median rule in Persia by presenting the stranger as a returned Cyrus but under his control.

When Manson Everard finds Keith in 542 BC, the latter as Cyrus has already conquered the Medes and founded the Persian Empire but Everard cannot rescue him because Cyrus' career, and life, continue until 530 BC. Keith must stay where and when he is. Everard and Keith himself had traveled to ancient Persia from the twentieth century of a timeline in which Keith as Cyrus had already died fighting after ruling from 558 to 530 BC.

Cyrus is "'...a key figure in a key milieu...'" (p. 87) because Persia was the first conquering power to:

respect those it had conquered;
obey its own laws;
open regular contact with the Far East;
create a world religion.

Further:

Cyrus will allow the Jews to return from Babylon;
Mithraism will influence Christianity;
most of Alexander's conquests will be of former Persian territory;
many Persian successor states will be important.

Everard says, "'If you quit...I can imagine them still building ziggurats and reading entrails - and running through the woods up in Europe, with America still undiscovered - three thousand years from now!'" (p. 88)

Could any one man possibly be more important?

Myths And Deleted Timelines

Timeline 1: Harpagus kills the infant Cyrus but later presents Keith Denison as a returned Cyrus and invents the hero myth to explain how Cyrus is still alive.

Timeline 2: Everard and Denison disguised as angels terrify Astyages so that he does not order the murder of Cyrus, who therefore grows up and succeeds his father in the normal way but the hero myth is applied to him in any case.

Morals of the story (if any):

the hero myth is extremely resilient - it is told of hundreds of great men, including Cyrus in both timelines;
history seems to want a Cyrus - he was killed in infancy but first he is impersonated by a Patrolman, then his life is saved by two Patrolmen.

Later, contemplating a different problem, Everard thinks:

"...that structure [of the plenum] isn't just changeable in time as well as space. It seems to be subtler and trickier than they see fit to teach us about at the Academy. Coincidences can be more than accidents. Maybe Jung glimpsed a little of the truth, in his notions about synchrony - I dunno. The universe isn't for the likes of me to understand. I only work here." -The Shield Of Time, p. 261.

Something strange happened with Cyrus. And, when the continuum is vulnerable and reality is unstable around the nexus of 69-70 AD, there is the potential for a new religion to start in barbarian Germany - in case a new religion did not start in Palestine?

Croesus On Cyrus

In Pasargadae, 542 BC, Manson Everard of the Time Patrol, posing as Meander from Athens, dines alone with the legendary Croesus. Soon, he will meet Cyrus the Great. Later in his career, a fellow Patrolman will introduce Everard to Hiram of Tyre. He will also meet King Roger of Sicily and the Emperor Frederick. Thus easily do Patrol members interact with historical VIPs.

Croesus tells Meander how the gods favored and sheltered their Chosen One, Cyrus. The Median Astyages wed his daughter Mandane to Cambyses, his vassal in Anshan. If Cambyses, having become ill, were to die while his son Cyrus was an infant, there would then be a difficult Persian regency so Astyages ordered his kinsman Harpagus to kill Cyrus but the kinsman replaced Cyrus with a stillborn baby and the prince grew up as a herdsman.

Cambyses survived for another twenty years but, when he was definitely about to die without an heir, which again would have caused trouble in Anshan, Cyrus came forth and Astyages acknowledged him as Cambyses' heir. Later, helped by Median nobles led by Harpagus, Cyrus revolted, conquered the Medians, then built an empire.

Everard already knows that this story - a hero who would have been killed in infancy if he had not been removed and brought up elsewhere so that he could return in triumph as an adult - had been told of Cyrus as of "...Moses, Romulus, Sigurd, a hundred great men." -Time Patrol, p. 73. We can add other names to the list. Everard does not expect the hero myth to be true yet it is "...sworn to by eyewitnesses!" (ibid.)

Has Everard traveled into myth, not history? It is a mystery. But there is a clue. Cyrus came forth when Time Patrol Specialist Keith Denison disappeared.

Croesus

In 542 BC, Manson Everard of the Time Patrol rides towards the Pasargadae of Cyrus the Great:

for miles, peasants living in windowless mud huts work dusty, stubble fields with sickles and oxcarts;
a galloping royal messenger kills a chicken;
trotting lancers with baggy pants, scaly armor, spiked or plumed helmets and striped cloaks are dusty, sweaty and coarse;
the economy supports a few aristocratic estates with large, adobe houses and beautiful gardens;
Pasargadae is twisting streets, hovels, bazaars, beggars invoking Mithras, traders, dogs, offal and tavern music;
entering a square of four mansions and seeking hospitality from some great man for a foreign traveler, Everard addresses a guard who calls a slave who gets a majordomo who sends another slave to invite in the stranger who is now to be a guest of "'...Croesus the Lydian, servant of the Great King.'" -Time Patrol, p. 69.

Thus, it is possible for a suitably attired, horse-riding, armed Greek, "Meander from Athens," (p. 69) to enter the highest level of Persian society.

Cyrus

Cyrus the Great is historically important but how much does Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story, "Brave To Be A King," tell us about him?

Tracing Aryan migrations, Keith Denison, Time Patrol Specialist, East Indo-European Protohistory, works backward from known history. On one mission, he goes alone to Iran in 558 BC at the end of the Median period. In 542 BC, Manson Everard, looking for the disappeared Denison, rides into the valley of the Kur at a time when:

"...the Great King had given so much law to his dominions that it was said a virgin with a sack of gold could walk unmolested across all Persia." -Time Patrol (New York, 2006), p. 65.

Everard reflects that:

in 558-553, the Persian king of Anshan, Kuru-sh (Koresh, Cyrus) came into conflict with his Median overlord, Astyages;
after three years of revolt and civil war, Cyrus led his Persians to victory;
next, he spent four years defeating counter-uprisings and Turanian invasions and extending his rule eastward;
in 546, King Croesus of Lydia, allied with Babylon, Egypt and Sparta, invaded but was defeated and annexed;
Cyrus' generals dealt with troublesome Greek colonies while the King fought Eastern barbarians;
in 542, Persia rules its conquests humanely and tolerantly;
in 539, Cyrus will fight Babylon and acquire Mesopotamia;
after another period of peace, he will die fighting barbarians beyond the Aral Sea.

"Manse Everard entered Pasargadae as if into a springtime of hope." (p. 67)

That "springtime" will affect post-Exilic Judaism and early Christianity. There is more about Cyrus but maybe that is enough for one post?